Are your family trips an exercise in pleasure or comfort? Behavior economics guru Dan Ariely notes that there's a vivid difference between the two... and it may mean the difference between a fantastic vacation and...

People with disabilities shouldn't have to try and pass as able in the workplace, says writer and comedian Maysoon Zayid. But the sad reality is that America's largest minority remains invisible throughout popular...

You've Heard of OCD, But Do You Really Understa...You've Heard of OCD, But Do You Really Understand It? :: Big Thinkers on Mental Health

The Suicide Rate is Going Up. Here’s What We Ca...The Suicide Rate is Going Up. Here’s What We Can Do to Stop it.

Big Think and the Mental Health Channel are proud to launch Big Thinkers on Mental Health, a new series dedicated to open discussion of anxiety, depression, and the many other psychological disorders that affect millions worldwide.

Can the Human Body Learn to Photosynthesize?

In 2011, UCLA biologist Christina Agapakis discovered that vertebrate animals can tolerate the presence of photosynthetic microbes after she injected zebra fish embryos with photosynthetic bacteria. In a follow up to the experiment, she was able to tweak the bacteria so that even mammalian cells would accept their presence. Scientists have also observed the Elysia sea slug commandeering chloroplast—the cellular structures within which photosynthesis takes place—from the algae they eat, though it is still a mystery how the slugs are able to use the chloroplast as an energy source.

What's the Big Idea?

Could the human body learn—or be modified—to convert sunlight into energy? While the idea of gathering power from the sun, rather than masticating it, might sound appealing, the human body is not well-suited to the task. "Even if our skin was riddled with working chloroplasts, they would only manufacture a fraction of the nutrients we need to survive. 'Animals need a lot of energy, and moving at all doesn’t really jive well with photosynthesis,' says Agapakis." And by growing plants for food in the first place, humans have essentially outsourced the process of photosynthesis on an enormous scale.